Watching ‘Tere Bin’ on Geo TV every Wednesday and Thursday is not quite a treat to the eyes. However, this typical soap-opera kind of ‘filmy’ drama has all the ingredients of becoming the viewers’ guilty pleasure.
Despite her hard work, Meerub, played by Yumna Zaidi, couldn’t portray a modern girl raised in an urban, 21st century setting, and suddenly ends up becoming the wife of a man whom she hates to the core. Her foster parents have no strength in their characters except for being submissive to a dolled up ‘Maa Begum’, played by Bushra Ansari.
The tale of love, hatred and jealousy becomes sillier when, out of nowhere, Haya, played by Shabeena Farooqi, imagines herself as the ‘Bahu’ of the household and submits to her own wild imaginations. She has nothing to do with self-respect and is usually ridiculed by her family members.
The male protagonist named Khan Murtassim Khan does some justice to his character and looks like he takes good care of not being a toxic male, until he loses his cool and all kinds of tolerance and delivers the very humiliating ‘Chaanta’ (slap) upon his rosy-cheeked wife. Later on, he develops feelings for her, continuing the common trope, thanks to the intensity of the slap – hats off to the awareness and the fear that engulfs all the educated male actors of exposing their chauvinist mindset.
The set, dresses, jewellery and make-up are so overdone, it is as if all the women transform themselves early in the morning into the great ‘Khan’ family avatar, which gives an unnatural feel to the scenes. One cannot see any kind of daily routine life going on in the household.
Played by Hira Soomro, the role of Maryam, who is Murtassim’s sister, is useless as she dons a bride-like look throughout the serial. She tries to keep herself immersed in her books, but is highly divertive with little-to-no concentration and is always ready to cover up a slew of silly and Machiavellian moves of Haya.
Maryam has a habit of getting frequent shut-up calls from her mother, so she seems quite used to such treatment, since her childhood.
Meerub’s real father, who appears quite an intellectual, shows immense love for her daughter now, after ignoring her his whole life and finally realizes that Meerub is not the real reason behind his wife’s death.
The roller-coaster of follies doesn’t end here. A confident and educated girl, Meerub, who has always dreamt of becoming a lawyer like her foster father, suddenly becomes a crazy woman when the truth of being an adopted child is revealed to her.
The dim-witted foster parents could have taken her into confidence first, before unfolding the truth of her life. Meerub proves strongly that her brain works like a recalcitrant teenager, who does the opposite of whatever she is asked.
An example of this shown when she goes to the fields of the enemy and is then ushered to his den. The reason for this hostility between the families of these two feudal bigwigs is revealed by their servants. During the sequence of events, the guards of Murtassim, oblivious to their surroundings, keep on looking ahead and nearly all of them are devoid of the natural ability to look sideways, which is so needed for being security personnel.
It is true that TV serials are a source of entertainment, and address some sensitive issues to depict the harsh and bitter reality of the society. However, when the producers try to put chunks of all these issues in one mixed plate, the message is not put across the way it should be.
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